Rea and Haslam in the hunt at Silverstone
Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam took provisional fourth and fifth places respectively in this afternoon’s opening qualifying session for round nine of the 2013 World Superbike championship at Silverstone in the UK.

The British duo returned from the Suzuka 8-hours race in Japan earlier this week but took no time in adjusting back to their SBK-specification Honda CBR1000RR Fireblades at the 5.902km Silverstone circuit, ending the day separated by just four thousandths of a second.

After grey and overcast conditions this morning, the first 45-minute qualifying session was run in warm, sunny but breezy conditions in which Tom Sykes took provisional pole position.

Jonathan Rea – P4 2m06.349s
We made some good progress straight away and got up to speed early on this morning, so I was really happy. This afternoon we went backwards with the set-up a little bit and we need to revert back to the ride heights that we had earlier. The bike was a little harder to ride, especially in the twisty sections. Looking at everything though, it’s useful to have Leon up there as well because we can learn some things from his data. We’ll sit down and go through it all tonight and learn what we can. It seems we’re faster than last year but in the second session it was quite difficult to do the lap time. We’ll try to make the bike more easy and try tomorrow with some improvements. Engine braking is still a bit of an issue and I feel like I’m being pushed into the corner a little bit, so we need to look at deceleration and then we should be in the ball park. But it’s not bad for a first day!

Leon Haslam – P5 2m06.353s
We’re making progress, even though we have a few issues that we need to resolve, but, all in all, it’s good. It’s always nice to be a little bit higher up the time sheets and, although I’m happy enough with the progress we’ve made so far, we’ve still got a bit of a way to go. The leg injury is not holding me back as much here as it has at earlier rounds, and once we’ve solved these issues we can hopefully make some bigger steps tomorrow.

Pieter Breddels – team-co-ordinator
This morning, Leon was struggling a little and didn’t do a lot of laps so we had to make the bike a little more to his liking. This afternoon he improved a little for a pretty good lap time, so it’s good to see him back near the front and showing his potential. Jonathan started pretty well this morning but we tried some things this afternoon, some of which improved the bike, some of which didn’t. We’ll analyse everything and try to make a better bike for tomorrow.

Camier starts Silverstone weekend with superb second in first qualifying

FIXI Crescent Suzuki’s Leon Camier began his birthday celebrations early as he set the second fastest time during first qualifying at today’s eni FIM Superbike World Championship event at Silverstone in England.
Camier celebrates his 27th birthday on Sunday and started the weekend off in good style by setting the second quickest time in this morning’s free practice session around the 5,902m English circuit, a feat he followed up this afternoon to give him a provisional front row start for Sunday’s two races. Camier looked impressive all day on his Yoshimura-powered Suzuki GSX-R and believes that with a few small improvements he will be able to push all the way on race-day.
Jules Cluzel made significant steps between today’s two sessions that saw him shave almost a-second-and-a-half off his morning practice time during this afternoon’s qualifying. The Frenchman is making his first appearance at the fast and complicated Silverstone circuit on a Superbike and used this morning’s session to re-assess his braking points and lines before pushing for a faster time later in the day. Cluzel claimed the 10th quickest time in qualifying, but admitted that a mistake on what looked like being his best lap cost him dearly and stopped him from being much higher on the time-sheets.
Today’s activities were held in changing conditions with the occasional hint of rain, which fortunately never materialised. Tom Sykes on a Kawasaki led the way by securing the top spot in both the practice and qualifying sessions.
FIXI Crescent Suzuki will have a further 45-minutes of qualifying tomorrow morning to finalise the riders that progress to the afternoon’s Superpole. This will see the top-15 battle it out for the best grid positions for Sunday’s races.
Leon Camier:
“I’m happy to be up towards the front and it’s a good way to start the weekend. I don’t think we really improved on anything from the first to the second session, which is probably a good thing because the bike feels quite fast and it’s giving me what I want in a few places, but I think if we can make a couple of improvements to the bike we can go a good step quicker. We’ll keep working and try to get the best feeling and performance we can from the FIXI Crescent Suzuki. The weather was good today, it did drizzle a bit this morning, but that didn’t affect anything. The wind was a bit of a problem and it changed direction this afternoon, it pushed me wide in a few areas and this made the set-up difficult to find, as it was hard to know if it was the wind pushing me wide or the bike’s setting. Grip is also pretty bad out there, but it’s the same for everyone, so we’ll keep working and see what happens.”
Jules Cluzel:
“It’s been quite a difficult day, because this morning I didn’t have quite a good feeling on the bike. We ran the same tyres for the whole session, so I was expecting some improvement this afternoon and with a new set of the same compound tyres I was immediately one-second quicker, which was quite good. On my last run I used a different compound and at the end I improved by another four-tenths-of-a-second, but I made a big mistake in the last split where I lost three or four-tenths and if that hadn’t happened I could have been second or third, so I think we are doing quite well and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
Paul Denning – Team Manager:
“Considering that both riders think there are big steps to take forward with chassis balance and overall performance of the GSX-R1000s from the first day here at Silverstone, the result looks pretty positive and promising for the rest of the weekend, especially if we can find the improvements they are looking for. Silverstone is an incredibly challenging track, with a mix of high corner speeds and demanding requirements for the bike and rider over the course of a lap. It’s tough to find the perfect balance, but the boys will be doing the best they can to do just that.
“It’s nice to be at the team’s second home race of the year, we’ve had a busy day and a big involvement from two of our partners, Voltcom and Catch Resource Management. We hope we can build steadily over the weekend and get the results the team and all the partners are looking for.”
Silverstone – eni FIM Superbike World Championship – Qualifying 1:
1. Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) 2’05.355: 2. LEON CAMIER (FIXI CRESCENT SUZUKI) +0.881: 3. Davide Giugliano (Aprilia) +0.977: 4. Jonathan Rea (Honda) +0.994: 5. Leon Haslam (Honda) 0.998: 10 JULES CLUZEL (FIXI CRESCENT Suzuki) +1.363: